


No Game

by Basingstoke



Category: DCU
Genre: Character of Color, F/F, First Time, The Outsiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-15
Updated: 2005-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:17:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Derry in the Four Color Heroines challenge. Thanks to Livia for the inspiration and Te for the beta.</p>
    </blockquote>





	No Game

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Derry in the Four Color Heroines challenge. Thanks to Livia for the inspiration and Te for the beta.

Grace woke up in a blank room.

She held still for a second, making sure she was alone, then jumped up and started looking for the exit. But fuck, it was _blank_. Four walls, a ceiling, a floor, all in gray. "So where's the john?" she muttered to herself.

"You will not require facilities." The voice came from behind her; she whirled and oh, fuck, Uncle Sz standing there, looking cool as a cucumber. "Tell me about your friends," he said.

Grace leaped at him and punched him square in the face--but he blitzed out as she touched him, he was a hologram, crap, and her punch carried her stumbling into the wall. The wall bounced her back like rubber; it was soft and thick. She punched it furiously--she could _make_ a door, dammit--but it absorbed her blows before she hit anything solid.

"Grace. Did you think I forgot you?"

"I thought you were DEAD!" she shouted.

He laughed. Grace hit the floor, looking for some kind of purchase, anything she could break. "He is dead," she said to herself.

Polished leather shoes stepped into her field of vision. She swiped out at his legs and her hand passed through the empty air. "The past never dies," said Uncle Sz.

Grace slid a hand up her shoulder, feeling the contours of the white tiger still roughening her skin after all these years. Her Triad tattoo. God, she'd been twelve when she got it--tall, tough, passing herself as sixteen, but just a little kid under that--and she'd needed the money so bad. They'd pay her just to show up once her powers came in, just to appear as one of their troops at a face-off.

It was that or hooking. No choice there. She straightened up and stared down at Uncle Sz; he snapped his fingers and showed her a hundred-dollar bill, just like the old days. "We took care of you," he said.

"No. I sold what I could do; you bought it. That's where it ends."

He tilted his head and looked at her sidelong. "Are you so sure?"

"I'm so sure."

"All we want is information, Grace. Tell us about your friends."

Grace crossed her arms. "Blow me," she said.

"How unfortunate," he said.

The hologram blinked out. Grace stared at the walls.

She wasn't sure how long she stared before she flipped out and started pounding the walls again.

* * *

Anissa woke up in a blank room.

There was light, but she couldn't find a source. The walls were grayish-white, featureless, and covered with something rubbery.

She rolled to her feet and felt the wall for some kind of door. She made herself as heavy as she could, and the material dimpled under her feet but didn't tear; the subflooring didn't buckle.

Crap. Anissa threw a punch at the wall, but it just sucked it up like she was punching pudding. Useless.

She sat down and waited for something to happen, and pretty soon, something did.

"Baby?"

"Dad!" She jumped up. "Dad, what--?" She leaned forward and touched his arm and her hand went right through.

"No, I couldn't be here in body. I can't explain, but I need you to trust me. I need to know what you and your friends are doing."

"I--" She swallowed. "What did I wear at my ninth birthday party?"

He didn't even blink. "Your pink princess dress. Anissa, I need to know. They're in danger."

It was him, standing there in his favorite suit--God--she wanted to tell him everything, spill it all, but she couldn't. She didn't know what was going on. They'd gotten training on this--at least, Roy had told them to stonewall in an interrogation while the others came in to rescue them. "I can't tell you that."

Her dad's face sank and she could see the hurt in his eyes. "Then I'm sorry. We have to go in with guns."

She bit her lip and tried to stand up straight. It might not be him. Luthor might be controlling him. Brainiac might be controlling him. Anything could be happening.

"I thought you could trust me," he said.

He blinked out and she doubled over, covering her face with her hands, not crying.

* * *

When Uncle Sz came back, she punched through him.

At least the rubber walls meant she wasn't hurting herself. And Christ, she had to pee. This was cruel and unusual punishment.

* * *

When her father showed up again, she looked at the opposite corner. When he crossed into her field of vision, she closed her eyes.

When he said her name, she covered her ears. She was right. She knew she was right. They'd come and get her out soon.

* * *

"I don't owe you ANYTHING!" Grace shouted. The rubber ate up the echoes and made the room seem even smaller.

* * *

Anissa jumped up and down and tried not to think about the fact that there was no door and no vents and no obvious air supply and holy crap--

Deep breaths. She punched the walls a few times and nothing happened.

She faced away from the image of her father, no matter where he paced.

* * *

Grace was just about to give up and pee in the corner when the rubber wall gave way and rolled up into the ceiling. "About frigging TIME," she declared, and she pulled her arm back and punched the metal underneath as hard as she could.

* * *

The rubber wall rolled up, exposing a metal. Anissa gave herself maximum density, doubled her fists, and swung at the wall just as a door opened in its blank face. She fell out into a hallway.

"Anissa! Holy shit, I thought they were going to kill me in there--" Anissa rolled over and Grace grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet.

"Where are we?" Anissa squeezed Grace's hand and they looked up and down the hall. There was a dent poking outward near one doorway, but no other distinguishing marks.

"I have no idea."

Light broke at one end of the hall--presumably an exit. Anissa started toward it. "Let's get out of here--"

"No." Grace tightened her hand. "I want to know WHO has us and WHO knew that shit about me..."

Anissa stopped and looked up into Grace's face. She looked transcendently pissed off, but under that, she was pale and her eyes looked kind of bruised. Grace tugged her in the opposite direction, where the hall dead-ended in a flat wall.

"I'm thinking--" Grace studied the wall. "Double deuce?"

"Yeah." Code. Anissa gave Grace her wrists and quick as lightning, Grace picked her up and whipped her around at shoulder level. Just before her feet touched the wall, Anissa gave herself maximum density as Grace let go.

It worked. Well, it wasn't complicated. They bust through the wall with a terrific scream of metal. Anissa tumbled head over heels for a minute--whew, that would hurt if she weren't a superhero--and then there was a flash and the air smelled like ozone. Anissa rolled into a wall, losing density and controlling her tumble, and bounced back to her feet. Her wig was half peeled away from her head, tangled up into what felt like one big dread.

And there was a red-haired woman in a wheelchair pointing a big gun at Grace. The woman pulled the trigger and nothing happened. Her eyes widened as Grace charged across the room at her.

She looked familiar, weirdly familiar, but it wasn't her face--it was something else, just something about her... Anissa shook her head and circled around the computer.

Grace grabbed the woman by her neck and hauled her out of her wheelchair; she hung limply as Grace pulled back her fist.

No, it was the hair, her bright red hair. Really bright, striking red hair flying around--and then she got it. "No, wait, I know who this is!" Anissa cried. And as she said it, she took a better look at the computer, and that confirmed it.

Grace glanced over at her. "Batgirl," Anissa said. "She was Batgirl."

Grace looked from Anissa to the girl, breathing heavily. "Are you sure? Are you POSITIVE?"

"Yes, I am--I saw her in my dad's pictures once and I remember the hair. I--" She half laughed. "I wanted that hair. And look!" Anissa plucked a tiny in-ear communicator from the desktop. She knew Grace would recognize it; it was the same kind they had, the ones Nightwing had supplied. Batman's technology.

Grace snarled and dropped the woman. She dropped back into her wheelchair and gasped for breath, rubbing her throat. "Fucking explain. Fucking make it good. Or I'm going to fucking kill you anyway," Grace growled.

The woman--Anissa didn't know what to call her, since obviously she couldn't be Batgirl any more--picked her legs up and dropped them back into the footrests of her wheelchair one by one. She coughed and put a hand to her throat again. "I was Batgirl," she said roughly. "I fucked up and I'm not Batgirl any more. Sometimes saying you're a hero isn't enough. Sometimes you have to be tested."

"I've been tested, you bitch," Grace growled. "Over and over--"

"And sometimes you made the wrong decisions!" Her eyes flickered to one side and Grace clapped her hand to the tattoo on her shoulder. That had to mean something, Anissa guessed. She'd thought it was all just art. "And you, Anissa, you haven't been tested at all. You're a kid. A newbie. You have less experience than the new Speedy," she said.

Anissa lifted her chin, but--yeah, she was right.

"My god, you Bats are fucked up," Grace said. Her voice was strained with emotion. "You did that to me as _training_?"

"You should see Robin's training," the woman said.

Anissa looked at Grace and shrugged--they couldn't beat her up; she was technically on their side, and what kind of assholes beat up a woman in a wheelchair anyway? Grace frowned in agreement. "I," Grace said slowly, "am filing a complaint."

"If you think about it, it's for the best," the woman said.

"Shut up before I punch you in the brain." Grace took a step backward, tensing, wavering visibly, and then Anissa grabbed her shirt and pulled her out.

"We can complain to her boss," Anissa muttered as they stormed out. "Talk to Nightwing, get his 411..."

"Screw that. I'm going to the big boss. I'm going to Superman!"

"You think Batman listens to Superman?"

"If he doesn't want his Bat-belt melted." Grace punched her fist into her palm as they emerged onto to an ordinary street. They both looked around. "Where are we?"

"Gotham," Anissa said. "See Wayne Tower?" She pointed.

"Figures. Great. We're going to get our asses beat by Batdaddy." Grace fidgeted and looked around. "Shit. Hang on." She bolted for an alley.

"What?" Anissa ran after her.

"Just stay there!"

It wasn't until she heard the sounds of water hitting pavement that Anissa got it. She blushed, crossed her arms, and waited in the mouth of the alley.

Gotham buildings looked like teeth chewing up the sky. She'd never been in this part of Gotham before, just the shiny parts with her mom: The Natural History Museum, the giant sloths, the dinosaurs. She'd gotten a little trowel and cleaned off part of a fossil; she'd been eight and it was awesome. Later, the art museum to see the Indian canoes and the diamonds.

No Batman. No _fear_. Not that she was afraid now, but--

"That was about to become an explosive situation," Grace said, and Anissa jumped. "I'm thinking we catch the train back to New York ASAP, because I really don't want to be here any more."

"Neither do I," Anissa said. Her voice broke down to a whisper on the last syllable.

"Are you okay?"

Anissa opened her mouth to say yes and sobbed instead. She clapped her hands to her mouth and Grace pulled her into a hug. "What did that bitch show you?"

"My dad," Anissa managed, and she sobbed hard--once, twice, three times--and then she fought it down and felt like a damn SUPERHERO again. "She used my dad to try to get information from me. I mean--it wasn't him. I knew it wasn't." She rubbed her wrist across her eyes. "How did she know I wore my pink princess dress to my ninth birthday?" she asked.

Grace stroked her head. "You had a pink princess dress?"

Anissa looked up. "Yeah."

"That's adorable," Grace said. She leaned down and kissed Anissa.

It just _happened_, tongue and all. And it was nothing Anissa had expected, not in an alley, not in Gotham, not really with Grace, but she sure as hell didn't want to stop. She slid a hand up Grace's naked ribs and Grace tensed and broke the kiss.

"Shit, I'm sorry, I'm such a fucking mess right now," Grace said, pulling back, but Anissa grabbed Grace's hand and put it on her breast.

"It's cool. I'm cool. Don't let go," Anissa said. She reached up and hooked an arm around Grace's neck and kissed her, hard, up on her toes, her wig tugging at her hair. She yanked it free with her free hand and dropped it into the gutter.

Grace touched her shoulder, then cupped her head and kissed her again. Anissa slid her other arm around Grace's neck--Jesus, she was tall--and Grace let go, grabbed her ass and picked her up bodily.

A shiver ran from her shoulders to her _toes_ and she wrapped her legs around Grace's waist. "Come on," Anissa said. She gasped when Grace shifted her grip under her ass and hooked her fingers into the deep V of her uniform. She was primed by the time Grace slid her whole hand inside.

She was light as a feather, so light she felt like she was floating, caged in Grace's arms. Grace kissed her and stroked her and she took a deep breath and came, just like that.

A weird night.

She relaxed her grip and Grace let her down. "I think we'd better go home. There's a train from Gotham to New York," Grace said. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and sucked them clean and yeah, sexy. Grace was really something.

Anissa took a shaky breath and smoothed her uniform. "I think, yeah... and we can go to my place, yeah?"

Grace leaned down and kissed her lightly. They walked out of the alley arm in arm.

She couldn't stop thinking about her dad. The hologram. Everything. Not giving in, and what if that had been for real? "There was a picture of me in my dress," Anissa said, "that my dad took. He didn't always come to my birthdays, but he came to that one. She must have found it--somewhere." She shook her head, creeped out to the core. She squeezed Grace's hand. "What did she show you?"

Grace chewed on her lip. "Nothing I want to talk about," she said.

They walked on. Gotham bustled around them like rats in the walls.

"My past," Grace said.

"This business..."

"The stuff that's happened to me because of this job is a whole lot less crappy than the stuff that happened before the job. I like getting paid through the nose to do the stuff I was doing anyway, you know?" Grace straightened her shoulders and looked up. "And if Batman's got a problem with that, he can come and take it up with me in person, where I can hit him! Got that?" she yelled to the rooftops.

When the echoes died out, there was silence.

"I think maybe he did," Anissa said, creeped out.

Grace jerked her chin at the distant buildings and they walked a little faster toward the train.

THE END.

 

All comments are welcome.


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